Gardener Fall - Chapter 4 - by nova

Two days later Ninja and I were just outside of camp on our way to run some drills with what I was calling the Scavenger Squad when we heard them. The sound sent a chill down my back. I signed my people to "Hide," and faded myself flat on the ground.

I was in the open and knew better than to run for the closest bushes. I didn't have the time and I sure as hell wasn't going to be caught running across a field by unknown helicopters. Helicopters because it sounded like more than one of them.

I popped my head up like a fucking gopher trying to simultaneously scan the horizon and check my people. Two thirds of my people had made it to some kind of reasonable concealment. The rest, including Ninja were spread out around me. I sure as hell hoped that some deranged dickhead fed hadn't designated this area as a free fire zone. It had to be the feds. No one else could still afford this kind of shit.

They went over us fast and low. The .50 gunner on the door off the big one saw us. No fire, a swooping bank as the Apache in the lead overflew the camp and then pulled up and started climbing.

I knew it was an Apache. Anyone who played online would recognize one. The little stubby wings hung with their death pods while underneath the pilots hung the 30mm canon that always reminded me of a little dick. The other helicopter was a Sea Stallion or something like it. I was remembering how much I hated these death birds as I got to my feet and yelled for Ninja.

While the Apache went high the Sea Stallion banked and came back towards us. That's when I realized it was landing and it planned on doing it damn near on top of me. I brushed myself off and signed the ones in the tree line to stay put. I wanted the rest on me. Hopefully they would understand. I doubted it. I never liked the black plastic guns but the comm stuff was great the army had was great stuff.

Ninja was next to me and staring at the Stallion which was hovering about 500 paces from us. My people were picking themselves up and running towards us from where they had taken cover. The Stallion door gunner was taking this all in. I looked at Ninja who was staring at the them, mouth open, and told him "Better close your mouth dude before you eat a stick."

"What are we going to do G?"

I checked to make sure he closed his mouth before I answered him with, "Greet them, what else?"

The door gunner who had been slowly swinging the barrel tracking people as they moved towards us let it center itself on me. I flipped him off and told the crew "Let's go see what they're selling this week."

Gardener Fall - Chapter 3a - by nova

Statler's story was short and simple. He caught him digging through his pack in the tent he shared with his current woman when they both had the time. Thompson? He turned on the charm, flashed the grin, and started talking shit. Watching him I have to admit I liked it when he realized it wasn't going to cut it with the crowd. I saw the flash of amazement but he just switched gears to contriteness and, "I'm really, really sorry." He paused after uttering that and checked the crowd. I saw the first bit of uncertainty when he realized he wasn't getting the reaction he expected. I checked the crowd too, the handful of faces I saw nodding like a bunch of bobble heads with forgiveness I filed away under, "will eat shit if the spoon is pretty enough."

He looked around. For the first time I saw fear. Only for a micro-second, You had to be standing next to him and focused on his eyes to see it as it was gone that fast. Just as fast was the blink of animal cunning I saw followed by his dropping to his knees, stretching out his arms, and with tears running down his face he sobbed, "Please! In the name of Jesus! Forgive me!" I waited a couple of beats, than I reached down, grabbed him by the collar, pulled him to his feet, and told him, "Wrong church Slick."

Max told him, "Look at me Thompson."

I assisted Tompson with his reorientation and told him "Hey. You got snot running out of your nose."
He muttered, "Fuck you Gardener" and wiped some of it away with the back of his hand. I cuffed him lightly on the back of his head and stepped back.

Max told everyone while he stared at Thompson, "Your guilt is obvious. Your groveling is a disgrace. As was your calling..."

Thompson was back on his knees again. I was beginning to wonder if he was really gay. "Please Freya! Spare me!'

Freya looked at him than looked at Max. "It is customary where I come from for a thief to get his hand cut off and then be banished from the people."

Max contemplated what she said. At the same time Thompson yelled "I'll take it!"

I was thinking if this went on much longer I was going to cut his fucking head off myself when Max stepped away from Freya. He looked at the crowd and then Thompson. I took two steps away from him. All Max said was "No." I was glad I had moved when I heard that.

Max drew his .45, shot him in the head, stepped back again and told us, "Donate his weapons and belongings to the common fund." He stood there for a couple of beats while nobody moved or said anything.

"Get back to work. Winter is coming."

I watched him walk away while Cruz began yelling at people to get moving. I headed off in the opposite direction. I know I didn't look back and I was sure Max didn't either.

Edited

Gardener Fall - Chapter 2d - by nova

"You got lucky Thompson. I'm your lawyer." He didn't seem pleased. In fact he went pale. I laughed. "C'mon," I told him. "Lets go see the Judge."

"You got to be shitting me. Max is the Judge?"

"Yep."

He went paler. I grinned at his reaction and said, "C'mon pale face. The Chief is waiting." He didn't get it. Instead of yukking it up with me he looked like he wanted to run.

"Bad idea. You can run but you wont get far. Plus your innocent. What can go wrong?"

He looked at me and tried to grin. He couldn't quite pull it off. Even with the great teeth it looked like the rictus of a man dying in great pain. An appropriate response, just a little early.

Gardener Fall - Chapter 2b - by nova

Night pulled away from Shelli and we all arrived in front of Max and Freya together. Night didn't like public displays of affection, it was a cultural thing, I usually ignored it anyway. The way I looked at it was in between running ahead of everyone and side trips like the last one I wasn't seeing, let alone feeling enough of her. So I looped an arm around her, gave a quick hug, and let her go.

"Hey." I waited a couple beats an added, "So why is he still alive? You waiting for me?"

Max grinned, and said "No. We're going to give him a trial and then kill him."

"So when did we become a democracy?" I asked.

Night answered "Since we got bigger and a few other reasons."

"Like?"

"Like we will talk later." Then Night held my look, looked at Max, and then back at me. Okay, I'm slow but I got it. Secret subtle shit must be going on. Well, no surprise there. Hopefully it wouldn't require a meeting.

"So how are we going to play this Max?"

"You get to represent your guy and Ninja gets to represent his. Let them each explain what happened, if they want to call witnesses let them, then speak for them if you want to."

Ninja looked puzzled and asked the question I wanted to which was, "Who gets to be the Judge?"

Max grinned and said, "I do."

Freya decided her was her turn to talk. She looked at us all and said, somewhat pompously I thought, "We always cut off their hand and sent them naked into the forest."

"Did they get to take the hand with them or did they go empty handed into the deep dark woods?" I asked her straight faced. She looked at me a little suspiciously and said, "Empty handed." I looked away for a couple beats to hide my smile. As I did Max told Cruz "Start it up." Cruz yelled "All right people. Lets do this!"

I starting walking towards Thompson. Night kept in step with me for a few seconds, long enough to mutter "Funny", smile a half smile, and walk over to stand with Chief.

Gardener Fall - Chapter 2a - by nova

Cruz went ahead of us yelling "Make a hole! Make a hole people!" They began to move, saw it was me and Ninja and moved a little quicker. A quick thought, "Man, I love this shit" went through my head. By that I mean people getting out of my way. I wonder what Ninj thought about it or if even did. When I was an IT drone as I was damn near invisible at work unless someone wanted something from me. I bet being an Asian back then, even as a kid, was the same way.

My guy, Thompson, was standing there, doing what he did best which was look good. He was trying to project charm, contriteness, and boyish innocence.Thompson was a good looking guy, and I tried not to hate him for it. He looked a lot like an aging action hero from one of those big budget, special effect laden movies that were popular once. He was also borderline worthless, a bit of a bully when he thought he could get away with it, and a magnet for woman who only thrived in abusive relationships.

I could tell by looking at him he thought he was going to be able to charm his way out of this. Probably because he was our first thief and we hadn't set a penalty for it yet. I knew there had been some borderline incidents but they were petty and handled at the squad level. This wasn't going to be.

Everyone had shown up for this. I saw Max talking to Freya while Night was listening intently to something Shelli was telling her. She saw me, smiled, and went back to listening. I grinned at her, damn, she was striking when I met her but she had become pure beautiful somewhere along the line. I refocused and headed for Max nodding at people who caught my eye along the way.

The aggrieved party, Statler, was standing about fifteen paces behind Max and Freya. I didn't know him by name but I recognized him. I would have known he was the complainant just by the way he was glaring at Thompson. I took note that he had his squad behind him while Thompson only had a woman I recognized from the dungeon where I had found Carol. I hadn't seen her yet but I knew she and Zane had to be around here somewhere.

Gardener Fall - Chapter 2 - by nova

I looked at Ninj and he shrugged. We both got up, I wasn't as fluid as Ninja was. That fucking pit bull that bit me had done some damage that, if anything, seemed worse than it had after I thought I had recovered. I saw that my stiffness hadn't gone on unnoticed by either of them and mentally made a note to be more carefully about how long I sat and to be more careful about showing it. I saw Cruz start for me like he was going to offer me a hand. I blew him off with a glare and a snarled "What's up Cruz?"

"We caught a thief. They have him down by the church."

We were moving and I asked him "Anyone I know?"

"Yeah...well maybe. He's from your company and he got caught with one of Ninja's guys gold."

I heard Ninja mutter "Shit."

I laughed. "Let me guess. Was it Thompson?"

Cruz answered me "Yeah. You got it. Fucking lightweight."

"Who was he caught stealing from?" Ninja asked.

"Statler."

"Statler? I'm surprised him and his buddies didn't drag his ass off into the woods and kill him."

We were approaching the church and I could see a crowd gathered. Even little spats and BS disputes drew a crowd these days. We were starved for entertainment.

Cruz's reply was "He would have if he had thought about it before making so much noise."

Gardener Fall - Chapter 1b - by nova

"Yeah. There's that." I left it at that.

He looked off into the distance and told me "This place is going to really suck come winter. Thank god they got us doing recon and scavenging. I bet it will still be too fucking cold for too long."

"Yep. Not as bad as being stuck out in the middle of the Great Plains or arriving in Montana in the middle of winter."

Ninja had given up on the knife tossing and was shaving the bark of a twig he had found. "So you believe Montana gets as much snow as they been saying?"

I sighed, "I hope not. What have you been hearing?"

"Ten feet. Most of it staying on the ground and more up in the passes. What ever the hell a pass is."

"Freya said it's less where we're going. Maybe two or three feet on the ground. A pass is some kind of low spot between mountains where you can get through without freezing your ass off I think."

Ninja had cut a point on the twig and was using it as a toothpick. While he was doing that he said "FruckinGazerBark. Itj zonds kalt."

I shook my head and told him, "Take the toothpick out when you talk you moron."

He spit it out wincing "Damn. We need a dentist. I said Glacier National Park, even the name sounds cold."

"Yeah. You forgot to factor in global warming. It will only be cold six months out of the year instead of nine."

"Riiighht." Then he looked at me and starting laughing. I joined him. We both knew it was probably going to be cold as hell most of the time. We were following a Nordic goddess wannabe around. Snow and cold was where they hung out so it made sense to me that I was going to be freezing my ass off. If Night was happy with it than I was going to be happy with it.

Gardener Fall - Chapter 1a - by nova

"Hey Ninj."
"Yeah G."
"You ever heard a song that went like this?" I semi sang it to him, "If God is a bullet have mercy on us everyone."

Ninja was sitting sitting cross legged on the ground tossing his knife up in the air and hoping it would stick point first when it came down. It was, but not that often. It didn't seem to bother him when it didn't.

He shook his head and said "Can't say I have. When did it come out?"

That was a good question and one I didn't have an answer too. Music from back then, at least in my head, had drifted loose from its mooring of time and dates. It was just from "Then" and then was a time that was becoming more and more like a movie or dream that I could only half remember and even those parts I did recall were often pointless.

I had one of my Rugers in my lap and had the cylinder open and was spinning it. The rounds for it were in my lap. If you asked me what I was doing I would have told you "checking primers." The reality was I thought each .357 round was beautiful. The brass, the bullet at the tip, they were my diamonds and gold coins. I loved looking at them.

"I think it was in the early 1990's."

Ninj laughed "Shit G. That's ancient. Probably a Beatles thing. Ask Chief. He knows lots of old stuff."

We sat their in silence for a bit. It was good. Then he asked me, "Why? What brought this up? If you found a working iPod that's something you need to share."

"Naw. I doubt if there is more than three left in camp that work. If you really want one ask Night. She knows what everyone owns down to the amount lint in their pockets."

We both laughed. She did too. We both knew it was true.

He went silent and I knew Ninj. He still wanted to know why I brought it up. So I told him. "I had this dream, that song was playing in the background or maybe just in my head, I was standing in front of people I think. They were not happy with me and I was not happy with them." I paused to look at him. He had quit tossing the knife and was listening. I flipped one of my rounds at them and said "Here is the only god that's listening." I stopped talking.

Ninja waited a bit, then said "Yeah?"

"I don't know but it was important and it felt real."

He tossed his knife up in the air. We both watched it bounce grip first off the ground. He shook his head, and said "Did you kill them?"

"I don't know." I didn't know either.

"Damn G. It can't be a big deal then. Usually you kill them."